Exford Primary School

Where Children Count!

www.exfordps.vic.edu.au

At Exford, these qualities are really important:

Respect Kindness Personal Best

… and it’s up to all of us to show them every day in

every thing we say and every thing we do!

Principal: Ms Lisa Campo Phone: 9743 5025 exford.ps@edumail.vic.gov.au

NEWSLETTER 2017 No.17 (Term 4, 2017) Thursday 9 November 2017

You are represented on School Council by: Parents: Adele (Olivia & Alexander), Amanda (Caitlyn, Ava & Hayley), Belinda (Nicholas and Kade), Jacki (Claire), Jenny (Aimee), Katy (Adele & Hamish), Sarah (Lily & Oscar), Sharon (Charlie & Archie) and Susan (Jessica). EPS Community: Graham Staff: Ms Campo, Mrs Farrugia, Mr King and Mr Parker

Follow this link to Exford’s YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRQsi70kyo0V7OFJsBcOF3w

Ms Campo’s News...

Christmas Concert This is a reminder about our lovely Christmas and Year 6 Graduation Concert which will be on Wednesday 20 December at 6:30 pm. Please be aware it is BYO seating - however the feet of your chairs cannot be narrow ones – broad feet (like those on Camping chairs) are required. Narrow feet will cut holes in our oval surface and nullify the warranty. We will hold our BBQ as we usually do and ask our families to support it as part of the fundraising efforts of the evening. No food can be consumed on the oval (that warranty again) and we will set up a ‘dining’ area in the Assembly area. We are looking for BBQ chefs to help with the cooking and serving – please let us know if you can help. The children’s costume requirements will be in the next newsletter.

Our new website! Our new website has been launched and I’m sure you’ll agree it looks fantastic. We still have our ‘L’ plates on with learning how to load items to it and will progressively add more items to it.

‘No Hat, No Play’! As recommended by SunSmart Australia, children

are required to wear their school hat from September to April…so...’No Hat, No Play’!

Cut out & stick me to the fridge!

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Dates to Remember: Please add them to your calendar!

2017 Dates

Term 4 Dates

Thursday 9 November

Prep Camp Activity

Monday 13 – Friday 17 November

Book Fair No 2 at EPS

Tuesday 14 November

2018 Prep Transition Day No 1

Wednesday 15 November

4:30 pm - final 2018 Open Afternoon 6:30 pm – School Council Mtg

Saturday 18 November

Djeriwarrh Festival

Tuesday 21 November

2018 Prep Transition Day No 2

Wednesday 22 November

McDonalds Burger Night

Thursday 23 November

Year 1 Camp Activity

Friday 1 December

Australian Playhouse Performance

Tuesday 5 December

2018 Prep Transition Day No 3 2018 Year 1-6 Transition Day No 1

Wednesday 6 December

2017 Year 6 Graduation Ceremony

Tuesday 12 December

2018 Prep Transition Day No 4 2018 Year 1-6 Transition Day No 2

2018 Year 7 Transition Day

Wednesday 13 December

Red Food Day No 2 at the Canteen

Thursday 14 December

2017 Parent Helpers Morning Tea

Tuesday 19 December

2018 ‘Meet the new class & teacher’ 2018 Yr 1-6 final Transition Day

Wednesday 20 December

Christmas and Year 6 Graduation Concert & BBQ night

Thursday 21 December

Semester 2 reports sent home

Planning for next year At this stage of the year, schools begin their next year’s planning in earnest. We base our planning on the number of enrolled students and communicate with the Department about the facilities we believe we will need. Schools’ funding is based on many complex formulas, but is mainly based on the number of students enrolled at Census (end of February 2018).

Therefore, if your child/ren will not be at Exford next year, would you please contact Ms Campo at the school ASAP or through the Principal link on FlexiBuzz.

2018 Book Pack information 2018 Book Pack information will be discussed at our School Council meeting next week and then that information will be sent home to you.

Staffing for 2018 We interviewed applicants for our two Leading Teacher vacancies for 2018 and have selected Mrs Natalie Talbot and Mr Nathan Jenner (Exford) and they are both very excited about the prospect of their new leadership roles, as are we.

We have advertised the Auslan vacancy at our school and will finalise the selection process by mid November.

We will now advertised a teacher vacancy to fill Mr Jenner’s vacant teacher position.

Prep Camp Our Prep children turned up today in their PYJAMAS! There were lots of jokes about their forgetting to put on their uniforms, only to be told indignantly that it is their Prep Camp Day today! The children have had a great day and there will be photos appearing in Seesaw over the next few days.

Mrs Roe Mrs Roe will be taking the remainder of the year on personal leave. We have appointed Mrs Rogers, one of our regular replacement teachers, to be with Year 1/2 R for the remainder of the year.

Gotcha prizes!

Ty and Lilly from Year 3 L spent some of their Gotcha awards on having lunch with Ms Campo and the teachers in the staff room. Many of our Gotcha prizes, (redeemable at the Gotcha Store on Mondays and Wednesdays) are experiences, such as lunch with the staff member of their choice and classroom privileges.

Canteen closures Mary-Rose and Fabian asked to extend their apologies for the recent Canteen closures; they have had family commitments on those days.

2018 Term Dates (repeated) Here are the term dates for 2018. Term 1 (9 weeks)

• Year 1-6 students begin on Tuesday 30 January 2018

• Prep students begin on Monday 5 February and attend 5 days per week (late start on Day 1) – see note below

• Term 1 ends on Thursday 29 March 2018

Term 2 (11 weeks)

• Staff only begin on Monday 16 April 2018

• All students begin on Tuesday 17 April 2018

• Term 2 ends on Friday 29 June 2018

Term 3 (10 weeks)

• Staff only begin on Monday 16 July 2018

• All students begin on Tuesday 17 July 2018

• Term 3 ends on Friday 21 September 2018

Term 4 (11 weeks)

• All staff and students begin on Monday 8 October 2018

• Term 4 ends on Friday 21 December 2018

Over the past few years, Preps have not attended on Wednesdays during the month of February, and have attended by appointment to complete their entry assessment tasks with their teachers to provide their teachers with information about their learning needs in order to better tailor their teaching and learning.

We have decided to have these four days at the start of the year so that all children’s learning assessment is completed

by the time the children start school. Our 2018 Prep children will start on Monday 5 February – starting at 10

am so that all their families can come and be part of this special day. (Our car park doesn’t cope otherwise!)

Pupil Free Days School Council has approved our selection of Pupil Free days for 2018. As always, we try to place these days adjacent to school holidays or to a Public Holiday to make child care easier for our families.

The days are as follows:

Term 1 – Monday 29 January 2018 Term 1 – Tuesday 13 March 2018 (day after Labour Day Public Holiday) Term 2 – Monday 16 April 2018 (Day 1 of Term 2 for staff) Term 3 – Monday 16 July 2018 (Day 1 of Term 3 for staff)

Would you like to join in the Exford 5000 Poppies Club? Our Exford goal is to make at least 100 poppies to send to the Australian War Memorial for Remembrance Day 2018.

https://5000poppies.wordpress.com/

Here is our EPS Poppies contribution so far – 53 pictured and we’re up to 56. Thanks to Sophie M’s Nanny who made 6 poppies for Sophie to contribute.

Shout-outs to our kids

Walk to School awards

Ashton

Ella R

Ryan H

Christmas Wrapping McDonalds are looking for volunteers to help at their Christmas wrapping service at Watergardens shopping Centre in the weeks leading up to Christmas – with all

funds raised to go to Ronald McDonald House. If anyone is interested in helping out again this year, please send me an email, telephone call. It was such fun last year and hopefully we can break the $10k and make our total $35,000 raised so far.

Sandra Collins

0414 728 067

Community Relations Representative McDonald's Sunbury, Sydenham, Watergardens, Gisborne, Melton, Melton East, Rockbank (inbound & outbound) Calder South, Calder North & Delahey 0414 728 067

Attendance … Every Day Counts

Did you know that:

If your child has missed 5 days or less this school year.

This will support your child to achieve their best at school – academically and personally.

If your child has missed more than 10 days this school year.

The amount of time your child is missing will impact on their learning and their friendships.

If your child has missed more than 15 days this school year.

Your child is missing so much time from school that it will be extremely difficult for them to keep up with their learning, their friendships and to feel connected to school.

A reminder that all holiday absences (3+ days) require an Absence Learning Plan, developed with your child’s teacher and signed by the Principal or Assistant Principal to cover your child’s absence.

Fundraising News

Our 2017 target is…

$18, 000 - $25, 000.

Our Tally so far… $13,461.57!!

Our Fundraising efforts work hand in hand with our ICT budget to provide our kids with iPads, laptops and other technologies.

Volunteering A reminder that parents / family members must have provided the school with their Working With Children Check. This is a Department of Education and an Exford PS requirement.

Christmas Concert Our annual Christmas and Year 6 Graduation Concert will be held on Wednesday 20 December. This is our major and final event for the year and we need lots of helpers.

Can you help in any of these ways?

• Source / provide donation of goods to go into our selection of prizes for the Christmas Raffle

• Help with the BBQs – cooking, serving, shopping

• Costume / stage props making (see your child’s class teacher)

Happy Birthdays!! To our students who celebrated their birthdays

from 12 - 26 October Maddy B, Ryan P, Hamish K, Aydin I, Jeremy C, Amily P, Carmen, Annabella, Toby Sm Hannah C, Argene, Adele V, Adrian, Jasper W, Isabella D

Happy Birthday to you!!

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday dear kids, Happy Birthday to you!

We love celebrating birthdays at school, making a fuss over the child who is celebrating and birthday cup-cakes are always welcome! We also love for birthday children to visit us in the Office for a sticker and birthday song and a photo of this is posted into Seesaw.

Having birthdays at school is a very special event and if your child is absent on their birthday, they miss out on all the fuss made over them.

Hope you enjoy reading our

newsletter!

Please see the pages from: • Ms Monagle’s page from Year 1/2 M

• Ms Lynch’s page from Year 4 L

• Ms Lynch’s Resource Smart Award page – we won!!

• Mr King’s School Wide Positive Behaviour Program

☺ Ms Campo

2018 Djerriwarrh Festival … coming soon!

Exford PS takes part in the annual Djerriwarrh Festival Street Parade. This year, the theme for Djerriwarrh Festival is ‘Belonging’ and the Parade will be held on Saturday 18 November at 11 am. We would like all children to meet beforehand between 10:15 -10:30 am so that we can organise everyone and make sure we are ready to go. Our school entry into the Street Parade will be demonstrating this theme through jigsaw pieces – We are all different but we all come together to make something wonderful. If your child is interested in walking with their school, Mrs Quayle will be printing tee shirts as part of our costume. Bring in a clean, named, plain white tee shirt and your child can choose a puzzle piece design and help screen print their tee shirt. T Shirts must be at school by Friday 3 November and we will begin printing them on Monday 6 November and they will be kept at school until the Parade. Parents and siblings are welcome to have a tee shirt printed by Mrs Quayle as well. If your child would like to join in but you do not want a tee shirt printed, there will be a limited number of alternative costumes for children to wear – just let the Office know in advance so that we know how many we will need. Parents and younger siblings are welcome to walk in the Parade with us. Children need to be signed in with us on the day and must be collected at the end of the Parade by their families. We’d love to see you - looking forward to seeing lots of Exford puzzle pieces in the Parade! Mrs Quayle & Ms Littlewood.

(Here are some photos from last year’s Djerriwarrh Festivals – can you guess the theme?!)

OSHClub News

Program Update

We had a great fortnight exploring new territories and activities. We made slime, salt paintings, straw weaving etc. Knitting and Twister are becoming more and more popular among children. Kinetic sand, blocks and Legos were most popular activities this week. We ended up spending most of our time indoor due to some children not having their hats.

We are planning to make Lava lamps and would appreciate if anyone one could donate clean empty bottles for the activity

If you have any suggestions, please use the OSHCLub ‘Suggestion Book’ on the sign in/out table. We are looking forward to your suggestions so we can make our program better

Friendly reminders:

Term 4 is No hat No play. Please ensure your child has a hat in their school bag so we are able to go out and enjoy the outdoors. You can leave a spare hat at the program if needed as well.

PLEASE ensure that if your child/ren are booked into OSHClub that they are NOT booked on the School bus this is very important as if your child does not remember to go to OSHClub they may end up leaving the school on

the bus.

If your child is due to be absent or needs to be booked in on late notice (less than 24 hours) please ensure you call and leave a message to ensure we have adequate staffing. Although this is only for emergencies. Please make the

bookings online as much as possible

Please keep the enrolment form updated all the time. If you want someone other than yourself picking up your child, please add them to the emergency list or provide us with a written request.

Thankyou from the OSHClub Team!

Contact Number: 0419 207 638

Parent Information

OSHC program phone: 0419 207 638 OSHC program email: exford@oshclub.com.au

Co-ordinator: Diya Assistant: Rebecca OSHClub Head Office: 1300395735

All families must be enrolled to attend the program, remember this is free!! Please create an account online at www.oshclub.com.au all bookings

and cancellations can also be managed via your online account. For on the day bookings please contact the Co-ordinator direct at the program.